


Acts of Courage

by TheWhiteLily



Series: Season Four Premiere Flashfic [9]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Although I suspect some people may see it the other way, Canon Compliant, Character perspective on a canon scene, Episode: s04e02 The Lying Detective, Fix-It, Gen, POV Sherlock Holmes, Spoilers, canon violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-14
Updated: 2017-01-14
Packaged: 2018-09-17 10:11:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 728
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9319145
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheWhiteLily/pseuds/TheWhiteLily
Summary: Sometimes the best laid plans go awry.  And sometimes, an act of courage isn't so showy.





	

Sherlock watched John, as he turned and began to speak to the spectre of his dead wife.  A spectre who—from his comfort with doing so—he'd apparently been holding long conversations with ever since her death.

He watched John, as he confessed to her and seemed to receive her answer back.

He watched John, as he put a palm to his face and began to weep.

It took barely a moment before the idea of the appropriate social response to an emotional breakdown registered in Sherlock's head.  Barely a moment more for that idea to be abruptly drowned by a tidal wave of unconscious revulsion.

Sitting in polite, even animated conversation was one thing—one very, _very_ welcome thing—but it seemed Sherlock was experiencing a—

—the last time John had touched Sherlock, he’d disarmed him. Slammed him into a wall. Then pulled him back, so he could do it again. Slapped him. Punched him, then waited for him to look up so he could do it again. And again. Kicked him. Again. And again. And _again and again and again_.

Sherlock had been dazed. Confused. Tweaking, far beyond the high the drugs could give him and into the abyss on the other side. Unable to remember his backup plans, beyond the central core that he was to do anything— _anything_ —to make John forgive him.

After Sherlock had taken Mary from him, John was entitled to his anger. Sherlock hadn’t imagined he’d get away with crashing into John’s life again without a punch in the face. Or two.

In the depths of drug-induced paranoia and despair, when one or two had merged into more, and more, and _more_ , he’d known he deserved it, _known_ he deserved anything that John chose to dish out.

John was a physical man. He expressed himself through physical contact: languished when he went too long without a romantic partner; became restless when he’d been too long without sparring in the gym. He brushed fingers when he passed a cup. Rested a palm on Sherlock’s shoulder to divert his attention from his microscope. Let Sherlock arrange his limbs to recreate a murder scene, or to prove a point.  Fetched loose items from Sherlock’s pockets.

John laughed with his whole body, raged with it, and apparently cried with it too.

But Sherlock’s whole body _ached_. From the withdrawal. From the cravings. From the bone-deep bruises, the cracked ribs that pulled on every breath, from the fear. The terrible fear that he’d made a fatal miscalculation; the fear that without Faith’s confirmation of his story, John had dismissed Sherlock’s theories entirely.

The fear that Sherlock had wasted dear, _dear_ Mary’s most precious gift—that he'd not used it to save John at all, but that without John ever realising the reality of the danger, Sherlock would silently and helplessly die at Culverton’s hands.

Or, as it had seemed possible for a long, horrible moment, curled on the floor enduring the impact of a boot to his abdomen again and again, at _John’s_.

Mary would _not_ have been pleased about that.

_I’m at the bottom of a pit and I’m still falling_ , Sherlock had told John. _And I’m never climbing out._

Slowly, stiffly, painfully, he put down his cup of tea, and climbed to his feet.

Perhaps it wasn’t the falling that would save John Watson.

His skin crawled with the animal instinct to cringe away as he stepped closer, the memories hazy but visceral: blow after blow after blow, looking up in desperation only to see John’s face filled with rage, and hate, see his fist coming down again to—

But Sherlock was a practiced hand at ignoring the complaints of his own body—and one of them had to be the first to reach out in gentleness again. It had always been John, before, who reached out to Sherlock, who forgave him when he overstepped.

The bravest, and kindest, and wisest human being Sherlock had ever had the good fortune of knowing, who had, by his very existence, steadfastly guided him to be a better man.

But John was at the bottom of a pit, still falling.

Sherlock stepped forward, and caught him in his arms.

“It’s okay,” he said.

“It’s not okay,” sobbed John.

“No,” said Sherlock, and gingerly leaned his aching cheek against John’s head. “But it is what it is.”


End file.
